The new “question-of-the-week” is: What is the biggest mistake teachers make in writing instruction, and what should they do instead? We teachers make lots of mistakes in writing instruction. Just ...

An instructional leader in a Bay Area school district told me last week that while they are a bright spot in improving reading for the last three years, they still haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic ...

Common Core State Standards are driving the curriculum and changing the expectations for what teachers and children are expected to do during writing instruction in school. Here are Common Core’s 10 ...

Imagine you are in the 8 th grade, working on an argumentative essay regarding “censorship in the libraries.” After writing a first draft, you receive this marginal comment about one of your sentences ...

Writing is a deeply personal act. From process to deadlines, no two people approach writing in the exact same way. Take, for instance, environment. While some people prefer to write in complete ...

Harvard in 1900 had only one required course -- freshman composition -- reflecting the faculty’s belief that writing was too important a skill to be left to caprice. After all, back in 1874-- 1874! -- ...

Mastery of reading requires developing its highly interrelated major component skills: decoding, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. These components are discussed separately below, but they work ...

One of the skills that separates a good engineer from a great one is an ability to communicate ideas clearly, and writing well is a key component of that ability. Unfortunately, for many engineers, ...

(This is the last post in a four-part series. You can see Part One here; Part Two here and Part Three here.) The new “question-of-the-week” is: What is the biggest mistake teachers make in writing ...

English language learners are the largest subgroup of adults enrolled in adult education programs. Although often treated as a monolithic category, their instructional needs vary dramatically. Some ...